


Willow Cabin

by inasieve



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Festive Fix-It, First Kiss, M/M, Missing Scene, References to Shakespeare, Victorian Declarations of Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 20:12:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17331599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inasieve/pseuds/inasieve
Summary: He lived with false teeth and weakened eyes and sorely troubled sleep, but James could say, as he strode westwards, that he had never been so content as he was now. Save this: he worried about Francis. Ceaselessly.





	Willow Cabin

**Author's Note:**

> A Christmas story, in time for Twelfth Night.

****Christmas Eve, the City of London, the year of grace 1848, and James Fitzjames could not sleep.

In the book-lined drawing room of the little house he had taken after what the papers had christened “the miracle of King William Island,” he made an attempt at Scrooge and the three spirits, but the _Carol_ refused to cast its spell: too many ghosts of his own, this Christmas. With a notion of putting the wakefulness to good use, he began examining the fair copy of the latest paper he had pledged to read for Harry (poor fellow: no amount of work was going to help him forget Lady Silence), but found himself on the fourth page and unable to recall a word of the first. When even St Luke’s gospel could keep only the lightest of holds on his attention, he looked to the clock, calculated that half an hour would more than suffice to reach Piccadilly in time for the Christmas vigil, and headed out into the snowy London night.

James could not sleep and could not concentrate, but he could walk. Had done, amazedly, gratefully, constantly, since their return, though the cobbles and paving stones still felt unfamiliar and almost unsporting beneath his feet, too easy to be quite real. But then, he had grown used to the sight, these past six months, of things that seemed not wholly of this world.

 

*

 

It started with the arrival of a group of fur traders, some speaking English, some French, all of them sympathetic and bemused. As their rescuers doled out lemon juice and fresh fish and medical attention, poor Francis endured a bilingual barrage of questions — “How many times is it now that you Navy lads have got yourselves frozen in up here and had to go dragging filthy great sledges all over the barrens?” “Et qu’est-ce qui est arrivé à l’homme qui a mangé ses souliers?” —and got an explanation in return: Richard King had written a letter in the _Athenaeum_ back in ’47 speculating that an overland party trekking up the Great Fish River might encounter Franklin and his men. The Admiralty as good as laughed him out of London, but his theory sounded less outlandish to the Hudson’s Bay traders than it did to the gentlemen in England, given the stories some of the Company men had heard from Inuit acquaintances. So here they were.

(When James was sufficiently conscious for Francis to recount all this to him, his first question, asked with rasping voice and unfeigned curiosity, was “Where does one get a copy of the _Athenaeum_ in Rupert’s Land?” Francis confessed he had wondered the same thing but, knowing what it was to have men take you for an illiterate on the basis of your accent and your birthplace, had not wanted to inquire. “And I’d like you back on your feet as soon as you are able, because Joseph has questions and we’ve come to the limits of my French.” “Really? With Latin like yours?” At which Francis gave him a peculiar look and said he didn’t speak a word of Latin.)

A month of decent food and rest, little more complicated than that, to get all but the worst of them upright once more, and then a long journey south and east to Halifax, and then home — home to a court martial so relieved to see them alive that it had been concerned only to verify that Tom had found the Passage and to place such blame as was admitted to exist squarely on the firm of Mr Goldner; home to a solemn commemoration of Sir John in Westminster Abbey and to, as Mr Bridgens had once predicted, a good deal of poetry; home to promotion for him and to a knighthood for an astonished and embarrassed Francis, at which news Thomas Jopson was so overcome with delighted pride that James had feared he would expire on the spot.

(James had been desperately proud himself, and when Francis had deemed the business ridiculous and undeserved, had told him it was neither and he was not so much as to consider turning it down.)

For some weeks afterwards, they had travelled separate roads, Francis repairing to Greenwich to busy himself with the question of the Prime Meridian, James finding a house in a quiet street by Temple Bar, filling his days with calls to long-missed friends, natural history work with Harry, and cheerfully aimless London walking, until the afternoon he stepped into Hatchard’s in search of Tennyson’s latest for Lady Jane and ran into John Bridgens.

“Mr Bridgens!”

“Glad to see you well, Captain.”

“And you, John. How is Mr Peglar?”

They shared a handshake that acknowledged this was not the first time James had asked this particular question, and that it had been more than a pleasantry, back at Comfort Cove.

“As well as anyone could wish, thank you, sir.”

The two of them, James learned, hoped to return to sea in the New Year, but in the meantime, had found themselves press-ganged into the company of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where an old theatrical friend of John’s had asked him to come and act as prompter for the run of _Twelfth Night_ , and where Henry had made himself invaluable in the matter of the backstage rigging.

“They did not think he would master it so throughly and so quickly, but as he told them” — and John did not trouble to keep the note of pride from his voice — “the scenic drops of the Theatre Royal are nothing to the sails of HMS _Terror_.”

Delighted at the prospect of Shakespeare in a real theatre, with a full company and an audience in no danger of frostbite, James swore he would not miss it. He composed a note as soon as he’d bid John goodbye ( _Francis — Could you be persuaded to Twelfth Night at Drury Lane?_ ) and sent it to Greenwich by an urgent messenger, who returned swiftly with a reply: _James — Always. But on condition that you hide with me in the gallery. I have no desire to sit in a box and be stared at for the length of a play about — of all themes! — bloody shipwrecks._

In some quiet, anxious corner of his heart, James had feared their friendship, born as it had been, would not survive at home, that anything they could say to each other now would seem inconsequential, or that past closeness and confidence would prove an awkwardness and not a bond.

He need not have worried.

“ _Twelfth Night,_ James? Bloody _Twelfth Night?_ ” said Francis, as they climbed three flights to their inconspicuous seats.

“The Theatre Royal did not consult my wishes in the matter.”

“Ah, but I’ve no doubt you like this one. It’s as convoluted as one of your stories.”

And the complaint was at once so fond and so familiar that he could not help himself.

“Oh, my very dear Francis. I _have_ missed you.”

He’d forgot how much he loved _Twelfth Night_ in all its wistful musicality, and Francis too seemed quite swept up by Viola’s lovelorn musings on willow cabins and reverberate hills, even if the comedy of mistaken identities left him unmoved and the fate of Malvolio had him looking genuinely appalled. When the show was over, they spent some half an hour lingering in the lamplit street outside the theatre, Francis arguing that Viola might easily have gone to Orsino’s court in her own clothes from the start and avoided the entire rigmarole, James trying vainly to propose a play that might offend fewer of Francis’s sensibilities ( _The Tempest_ , he discovered, being too full of maritime disasters, _Julius Caesar_ of tents, and _Hamlet_ of people affecting to be cold). At last, Francis suggested that he had best find a hansom and return to Greenwich.

“Few drivers will want to go to all that way at this time of night, you know.”

“I have walked longer distances, and recently, James.”

“Christ alive, Francis, you can’t imagine I’d let you _walk_ to Greenwich.”

“Are there demon white bears in this city of yours that you’ve not warned me about?”

“No, but there are all manner of brigands, and — stop _laughing,_ Francis. In any case,” he continued, more brightly, “I live perhaps twenty minutes’ stroll away. Come home with me, and take your journey tomorrow.”

In the two weeks that followed, Francis spent so many hours travelling between Greenwich and the City that James suggested they might as well take up residence together.

“The Observatory is all well and good, but the two of us could work through those peculiar magnetic readings and try to salvage some scientific advance from the logbooks. And you might get a proper night’s sleep.”

Francis sighed at that, and his reply was slow in coming.

“Very well, James.”

 

*

 

That had been perhaps six weeks before Christmas, and life since then had been — if less glittering and more sober than he might once have wished — gloriously easy, companionable, and calm: mornings poring over their salt-stained charts and tables, and ever-shorter autumnal afternoons chivvying Francis from one part of London to the next, determined to discover the square or bridge or park that would touch his friend in the same way the whole city touched him. He lived with false teeth and weakened eyes and sorely troubled sleep, but James could say, as he strode westwards, that he had never been so content as he was now.

Save this: he worried about Francis. Ceaselessly. Invariably the second to retire and the first to rise, his friend slept little more now than any of them had in the unending light of the Arctic summer. Summons to balls and lectures and concerts would have been left unopened had James not insisted on at least sending cordial regrets — and while there was nothing surprising in that, the invitations to supper parties with old friends met the same fate. James was glad to discover he had few qualms about declining the similar stack of letters addressed to him, much as Francis urged him to go — better by far to spend the long November evenings by the fire, by themselves or in company with one or two of their shipmates, not having to fend off questions about unicorn whales and white bears.(“If I’m ever fool enough to accept another such invitation, Francis, remind me, first of all, that I no longer know any of the figures one is expected to gossip about at these ghastly evenings, and second, that I have spent the past six hours being interrogated about the expedition by people who seem to forget we lost nearly half our men.”)

But the truth remained: while most of their men were now recognizable as their old selves, Francis was still the thin, weary-eyed figure he’d been all year, so it was little wonder, thought James, that he found himself unable to sleep.

 

*

 

_They smelled the city before they saw it, fog-shrouded London on its dirty river, and James passed the entire morning on the quarterdeck of HMS Swiftsure, waiting for the sight of London Bridge. Concentrating on the riverscape and impatient to be home, he did not notice Francis’s presence until he felt a hand on his arm and heard a lightly teasing voice:_

_“You’re beaming, James.”_

_“And you are not?”_

_Francis clasped his hands behind his back and thinned his lips, evidently struggling for an appropriate reply._

_“What Francis can’t bring himself to tell you, Commander, is that he cannot stand the place,” offered Tom Blanky, joining them._

_“Yes, I can, thank you, Tom.”_

_“But it is a terrible trial to him.”_

_They paused, as though inviting him into the circle of their longstanding friendship (which was kind) and waiting for him to resolve their bickering (which was not). At last, he said:_

_“Here we must differ, Francis, for London has charms for me that nowhere else could have. I’ve always found it rather like the Navy — a place for reinvention.”_

_“And want, and iniquity, and disease,” muttered Francis._

_“Come now — it isn't 1665. You’re not likely to catch the plague.”_

_“Cholera or consumption, yes,” said the ice master, “but consumption is a prettier death than gangrene. Or scurvy,” he conceded, with a nod to James. They had come nearer to it than Francis and could make jests that he would not._

_“Only in novels of a sort I did not know you favoured, Tom Blanky.”_

_And all in an instant, it was there: the Tower and the bridges and the spired dome of the Cathedral, heart of a city that had never, in any spell he’d spent there, failed to surprise him. James breathed in sharply and Francis turned towards him at once, reflexive concern in his eyes._

_“That’s a sight.”_

_“Yes, it is,” said Francis._

 

_*_

 

“Captain Fitzjames!”

To the accompaniment of a thunderous organ voluntary, the churchgoers of St James’s, Piccadilly rose and sought out the friends they’d spotted over the course of the service, and James found himself bowing to Lady Ross and shaking hands heartily with her husband. After he’d promised to stop by their Christmas festivities tomorrow, Lady Ross hailed an acquaintance on the other side of the church, leaving Ross and James alone.

“It really is splendid to see you — but is Francis not here?”

“Not this evening — Miss Blanky has been hard at work all day, and Mr Blanky is waiting for her so that they can take the stage to Yorkshire, and Francis, I believe, is keeping him company.”

“I’m glad to hear it. He’s been — withdrawn, of late, would you not say?”

_Yes, I would, but damned if I’d admit it to another soul._

“I fear I'm not the person to ask, Sir James. We were not well acquainted, before we sailed, so my store of comparisons is limited.”

“I’d forgot — forgive me.” An awkward pause, and then Ross resumed: “It’s only that I have seen him scarcely half a dozen times since your providential return. And there was that unhappiness with — well, with the lady.”

She’d refused him, again, turning him down with kindness and with finality on the hills of Greenwich Park. It had been the most uncomfortable conversation they’d had, the night James had asked whether Francis intended to renew his suit to Miss Cracroft, and Francis had replied, stiffly, that he had already done so and she had not done him the honour of accepting him. (“And now, in the name of all that’s holy, could we speak of anything else at all?”)

“We called on her and on Lady Jane last week, and I believe I understand the matter more clearly,” said Ross. “Lady Jane intends to travel, and she wishes her niece to go with her. I cannot tell if Miss Cracroft acts from duty or from a taste for adventure — perhaps she cannot, either — but she does not feel at liberty to wed.”

“Ah.”

Contained in that single syllable was the memory of his most recent talk with Lady Jane: _I am neither blind nor cruel, James. It would be an honourable match and I know he makes her happy. She does not feel that she can do the same in return. Indeed, she does not think that anybody can. For Francis’s sake, I hope that she is wrong, but you know as well as I that there is every chance of her being right._

“It is not justice. He is the most decent of fellows, and besides that has both title and reputation to lay at a lady’s feet — in any case. What of you, Captain? You look remarkably well. To sea again, I trust?”

“Perhaps. I expect so. But we’ve all of us had recoveries to make.”

“Of course. Still, I shouldn’t wonder if the Admiralty weren’t planning to knock at your door soon enough. The North Pole, the South — no shortage of work.”

It was true. He had not given much thought to the future, but he did not know what it would involve if not the Navy. At the same time, he could not suppress the idea that Ross had stepped back from active service following his marriage and that he did not see why he should rush back to sea now that he found himself happier than he could recall —

Oh, death and _hell._

At once quite dazed and yet further from sleep than he’d been all evening, he bade Sir James a merry Christmas and set off, walking deliberately away from home, the night growing colder, quieter, darker the further he travelled from the West End: Piccadilly to Mayfair, Mayfair to Marylebone, across the Regent’s Park and into Hampstead and up to the Heath, the distance and the chill making no impression on his mind, which was racing and yet accomplishing nothing at all. It was only when he found himself alone and looking back at distant London from the top of Parliament Hill that he felt calm enough to think.

Who was he to deprecate Sophia Cracroft for her muddled feelings, when he could scarcely start to untangle his?

Friendship. Brotherhood. He reasoned with himself: these were sentiments so strong it would not be difficult to mistake them for something stronger still. But another voice, equally reasonable and equally his own, whispered that while there was nothing he would not undertake for his officers and his men, there was only one person whose presence never failed to cheer him, whose wellbeing worried him every day, whose voice —

It was not wise of him to dwell on Francis’s voice.

 

*

 

_It shouldn’t have been possible, not after so many days of too little sleep and too little water, but Francis read beautifully. While James could hardly speak the responses, Francis’s voice carried them both gently, steadfastly through the Order for the Visitation of the Sick: the exhortation, the articles of faith, the rising and falling rhythms of the Seventy-First Psalm (forsake me not, O God, in mine old age, when I am grey-headed — well-meant but cruel, that verse). In another life, he might have made a fine priest — although if he had, he would not have been here, and if there was any touch of grace or mercy left to James, surely it was that he had Francis at his side tonight. As Francis pronounced the blessing and fell silent, James longed for the strength to tell him so, but he had to weigh his words, now, and separate the ones that needed speaking in this world from those that would have to remain unsaid until the next._

_“There’s more, I think?”_

_They both knew that there was: the Church appointed further words at the end of the service for times “when there appeareth small hope of recovery,” words of repentance and faith and trust, and though Francis’s voice faltered as he prayed to have “James’s pardon sealed in heaven, before he go hence, and be no more seen,” he read on to the end. But there was still more, he recalled — words for a sick person on the point of departure —_

_“Francis — the next — ”_

_For the first time in all that long and trying evening, Francis did not at once do as James asked. The book fell from hands that were suddenly trembling and reaching towards him and then hesitating, as though Francis were doubtful that any touch he could offer would bring comfort and not pain. Broken-glass knuckles be damned, thought James, and caught one of Francis’s hands in his own, drawing them both to rest over his swiftly weakening heart._

_“We’ve not come to that, have we, James? Not tonight?”_

_And James, though it cost him terribly, could only shake his head._

_“Is there something else? A favourite psalm? James?”_

_In truth, the Visitation of the Sick was not a service he’d had cause to read often, its words strange and stern as death itself. He could feel another wave of pain and weakness gathering about him and what he wanted, really, was to be taken back to quiet English Sunday afternoons in the parish church and —_

_“Evening prayer?" he whispered._

_“Evening prayer,” agreed Francis, taking up the book and turning back the pages, so that when James lost consciousness, it was to the blessedly familiar words of the gospel canticles._

_When he came to, he found he did not have the strength to open his eyes, but he could hear Francis speaking still, and surely he’d lost his reason, for if that was English, he could no longer make sense of it. It was only after a minute or two of despairing incomprehension that Francis paused and started anew, and then James was sure these were words he had heard before, long ago and never after he’d come to England, ones he’d heard spoken with a Portuguese lilt and not an Irish one but recognizable all the same: Ave Maria, and Salve Regina, and Ave Maris Stella, Latin prayers to the Mother of God and the saint of seafarers._

_Ah. Francis must have Catholic relatives, too — another conversation they’d never have. (“Which do you think would give Sir John the greater shock, brother? The sound of you petitioning the Virgin, or the sight of me with my hand in yours?”)_

 

_*_

 

The memory had come back so completely and so vividly that he was on the point of discarding coat and scarf — why was it so insupportably hot? — before he remembered that he was standing stock still on the Heath in the December cold, not burning with fever in the closeness of the sick-tent.

_Francis, you dreadful liar. Not a word of Latin, indeed!_

No doubt about it, now. Not friendship, not brotherhood, not even hero worship — love.

There were, it struck him, three choices. The first: speak, and take the consequences. But surely he had no reason to hope Francis might feel as he did, so what would be the use? The second: stay silent.It was not as though he hadn’t kept a secret from Francis before, and done it neatly. And if the idea felt unnatural now (which it did), he reminded himself that there were still things they did not share — he flattered himself that Francis had no notion how much time James spent worrying over his health, or that Lady Jane had told him the story of the unsuccessful suit to Sophia. It would be grim work: James had yet to meet a person in love who could keep it wholly secret. But the third choice was to go back to sea alone, and that, he thought, would be grimmer still.

What was it Viola said when she found herself impossibly in love?

_O, time! thou must untangle this, not I._

 

_*_

 

It was just gone six, by the grandfather clock, when he arrived home. Though daybreak was only an hour or so away, he’d spent the whole night wandering, and worn out with the effort, he considered retiring and hoping for at least some sleep. But before he’d reached the stairs, he caught the faint sound of Francis’s voice, uttering raw, wordless cries it staggered him to hear.

His insides twisted in sympathy and he cursed himself for an idiot, imbecile, and fool: how could he not have guessed? The sleeplessness and the nightmares had been with him ever since the voyage from Halifax, when at last he’d found himself without any duties to keep thought at bay; it was no great leap of imagination to suppose they’d come for Francis as well.

Caught between a desire to rush to Francis’s side and shake him into consciousness and another to retreat to his own room and spare them both embarrassment, he settled for making a three-act melodrama out of the morning tea: dropping firewood, banging cupboard doors, bringing the kettle to a whistling boil. The noise had the effect he’d hoped it would: the cries stopped, and Francis appeared moments later, looking haggard.

(Haggard, and unhappy, and dearer to him than any man living. How had it taken him this long to see it for what it was? And however was he going to get through this morning without Francis noticing?)

“You’re not the subtlest of God’s creatures, are you, James?”

“Hmm?”

“Did I wake you?”

“Wake me? No — not a bit.” Seeing Francis’s unconvinced expression, he added: “Went for a walk. Couldn’t sleep.”

“ _Christ_.”

Stalking across to the fireplace, he stood as far from James as it was possible to do, hunched over the mantle in the posture of a man summoning up the courage for some frightful duty. When Francis at last turned to face him, he wore an expression which James had seen only once before and had prayed never to see again, one that took him back to _Terror_ and to the wretched, wretched night Francis had given up the whiskey, a look of mingled shame, misery, and resolution.

“James, I can’t impose on you any longer.”

He’d considered flying back to sea himself, but never, never once, had it occurred to him that their next conversation might be about _Francis_ leaving. He struggled for a reply and, finding none, took refuge in convention:

“It is the furthest thing from an imposition.”

“Not if it leaves you unable to sleep.”

“God above, Francis, you can’t suppose I don’t suffer them as well? It’s — it’s the sail of a pressure ridge. Long submerged and then suddenly unavoidable.”

“Easier to avoid, I think, if you hadn’t invited a living reminder of every horror of the last three years to come and haunt your rooms.”

That raised a terrible thought, and one he had not considered — 

“ — have they been worse, these past weeks? Being here? I could not stand to be the cause — ”

“The cause? Sweet suffering Christ, James, you can’t imagine what it is to wake here and to _know_ I didn’t lose you on the ice.”

It was only long years of British schooling and naval discipline ( _and vanity, James, also vanity_ ) that kept him from reaching for a chair to steady himself, for his heart was reeling, at the thought that Francis spent his nights reliving the final days before their rescue, and at the faint hope that there might be a point in speaking and trying the consequences, after all.

That was the moment to begin, to say “It takes no imagination,” but he was slow, unforgivably slow and tongue-tied, and a hateful silence grew between them. When Francis spoke once more, his face was closed and his tone was distant:

“Goddamn winter in these benighted islands — you’d think British cold and dark would be nothing to me now.”

“I don’t believe it works like that.”

As if it sensed how profoundly they needed a third voice,the clock chimed the half-hour. Not trusting himself to speak, James held up a hand as though asking Francis not to move, and returned to the almost-forgotten tea. For the first time that morning, something like amusement crossed Francis’s features.

“Tea? Now?”

“Already made. And it is for just such moments, by the way, that we have tea. Now would you come away from the blasted fireplace and take a cup?”

“James Fitzjames,” said Francis — and he really was smiling now, James was relieved to notice — “you may well be the most fully _English_ Englishman I’ve ever met, and I forgive you for it with all my heart. But I’ll manage without the tea.”

“Well, do stop standing there like that. You look as though you’re about to burst into soliloquy or start apostrophizing a skull.”

Making it clear to James that he was being humoured, Francis left the fireplace to sit on the window seat, still as tense and upright as a new church clerk worried he’d forget to ring a crucial bell at his first service. James abandoned the tea and went to join him.

_To know I didn’t lose you on the ice._ That unguarded cry, he thought, demanded honesty in return, so he compelled himself to meet Francis’s gaze and speak the truth.

“I meant it, you know. Ever since Halifax. Real memories and invented ones: Carnivale, more than anything else, and Sir John, frequently, and — well, you, Francis. Back on the ice and bleeding, here,” he said, fingers ghosting over imaginary wounds high on Francis’s forehead, “though you told me you weren’t sick, so I’ve never quite understood that, and you look — terribly alone. Always. So I can imagine, more easily than you suppose.” He felt Francis leaning, almost imperceptibly, into the touch of his hand, and it spurred him on: “I’m not sure what I’d do if you left. Most probably have to go haring off to Greenwich every morning to reassure myself that you’re still there. You might save me a deal of effort and worry.” 

“But James — you cannot be happy. And this — this cannot be the life you wanted.”

_What was that Yankee phrase he’d liked so much, once? Ahead. Ahead. Go ahead._

“Francis, there is something I must ask you, but first — I beg you — believe that I could never think you other than the bravest man I know, whatever phantoms the night sends you. As to — I have never been so content in all my life, but these,” he went on, waving at the room and at the city beyond the windows, “these are trappings. I would quit London in a moment if you wished it and if you’d let me go with you. It is not, I grant, a life I could have imagined wanting once, but do me the courtesy of believing it to be the only thing I want and ever hope to want now.”

For the first time in months, he found Francis utterly unreadable.

“Was there a question in that pretty speech, James?”

_Over the Rubicon—_

“May I kiss you, Francis?”

The transports he felt at the answering nod gave way to panic as he pressed his lips against Francis’s in what might just have been the most graceless, closed-mouthed, open-eyed kiss to which he’d ever been a party. If there existed a way to kiss your dearest friend in all the world so as to make it plain that you’d like nothing better than to break the Articles of War with him until the sea gave up her dead but that you’d also remain as you were now, and happily, if only he would forget all thoughts of the thrice-damned Royal Observatory in godforsaken Greenwich — well, James had no idea what such a kiss might feel like, save that this was not it. He simply would have to hope that Francis — uncannily perceptive Francis — would understand.

When he could see no point in spinning out the embarrassment any longer, he drew back, full of explanations — it had been _three years_ , after all — and apologies. ( _Fourth choice: Speak, and discover that by some unearned good fortune he feels as you feel, and then watch him go when he learns what a hopeless fumbler you are._ )

But Francis’s eyebrows had risen to undiscovered heights, and his smile was positively wicked.

“All your adventures, and nobody ever taught you to do that properly?”

And before James could muster any amount of wounded indignation, Francis had caught him in his arms and kissed him with an ardour that drove away all thought, save an irrelevant, giddy consciousness that there was nothing, _nothing_ at all the matter with his lungs and that he was a thousand times luckier than he deserved to be.

When at last they broke apart, James spoke first.

“This presents a problem, you know.”

“Oh, just the one?”

“It strikes me that if we do return to active service, I may have to be your flag-captain rather than your second. Separate ships would be — ”

“Intolerable. Personally, I have grave concerns about the separate _rooms_ arrangement in this house.”

“So there’ll be no more talk of leaving, then?”

“James — there are those who’d say the handsomest man in Her Majesty’s Navy might do better than to chain himself to a melancholy Irishman afflicted with night-terrors.”

It was a joke, he was certain, but the idea that the man could speak of himself that way, even in jest, cut James to the heart. He wanted to reply in the intended spirit, but found himself reduced to burying his face in Francis’s shoulder, all attempted lightness lost in the struggle to keep his muffled voice steady:

“The same fools, I’m sure, who’d tell you the hero of the lost expedition might aim higher than a nameless half-pay captain with no stories he hasn’t heard a dozen times already.”

Francis’s arms tightened around him, and when he spoke, it was in a tone that took James back to Victory Point, when he’d learned that he trusted Francis as he'd never trusted another soul, and found that Francis understood and loved him better than anybody ever could:

“You,” said Francis, “are not _nameless._ You are my own dear James, and you can repeat your stories as often as you please.”

“And if I heard any other man speak of you as you are wont to speak of yourself, I’d be obliged to call the fellow out.”

“With rockets, I suppose.”

“With rockets, if you’d like.”

The clock chimed once more and London sunlight, feeble but determined, appeared around the edges of the curtains. A moment later, the bells of St Clement’s and the Temple and St Martin’s and the Cathedral rang out into the wintry morning: the first day of Christmas. With an air of resignation, Francis took his hand and brought them both to their feet.

“No doubt I’m to be dragged to services in some frigid City church and then made to stand about examining its medieval crypt and hearing you discourse on the Romans in Britain?”

_Christmas. Yes. Quite right. Although —_

“Not if you don’t wish to be.”

“James,” said Francis, all merriment abruptly vanished from his eyes, “forgive me, but I cannot face the Prayer Book. Not yet.”

This — what ought he to call it? an understanding, a union, a love? — would neither end the nightmares nor silence the memories: even he was not such an optimist as to suppose it would. But at least, he thought, drawing Francis into an embrace and gently kissing his hair, nothing need be suffered alone: no pining in thought, no smiling at grief for them.

“Then, my dear, dear Francis, we can walk along and hear the carollers, and I believe we’re expected at Sir James and Lady Ross’s this afternoon, and — well. We are here _,_ and it is Christmas, and the bell-ringers are excelling themselves, and if you cannot love London today of all days, you simply never will.”

“I love _you_ , James,” grumbled Francis. “Must I love your confounded city as well?”

And as though he had not said anything at all extraordinary, he shrugged on his coat and was already halfway down the stairs before James recovered the powers of speech and movement and was able to hasten after him into the snow, and the cold, and the sun.


End file.
